April: Still the cruelest month?

1.


A large man in overalls, shirtless nameless and scared shitless that his life's possibilities have hit the proverbial wall (or so I imagine), picks at a scab on his knuckle while waiting in one of those lines we all wait in when summoned to perform some duty in a bureaucratic office with government posters on the wall. I wish I knew what specific duty his is to perform. It smells like boredom and incomprehension in here, but it's not like at the post office, full of envelopes and procedural rigor. and the employees don't have uniforms. the magazines (Field & Stream, U.S. News and Report, Martha Stewart Living) are functionally distractive in only the most nominal sense. Tidbits of conversation at the head of each line carry that soft-edged politeness that comes hand in glove with situations where one stranger attempts to induce another to take an interest in his affairs.



2.


Someone somewhere is shooting at sheep with a paintball gun, for the sake of not having much else going on, at all. Were that it not the case.


3.


F.H. Bradley supposes that each individual agent is trapped in a kind of impermeable circle or bubble against which other agents' bubbles bump up. That does not make for a good night's sleep.